Immediate transfer of synesthesia to a novel inducer.

In synesthesia, a certain stimulus (e.g. grapheme) is associated automatically and consistently with a stable perceptual-like experience (e.g. color). These associations are acquired in early childhood and remain robust throughout the lifetime. Synesthetic associations can transfer to novel inducers in adulthood as one learns a second language that uses another writing system. However, it is not known how long this transfer takes. We found that grapheme-color associations can transfer to novel graphemes after only a 10-minute writing exercise. Most subjects experienced synesthetic associations immediately after learning a new Glagolitic grapheme. Using a Stroop task, we provide objective ev…

Swimming-style synesthesia.

The traditional and predominant understanding of synesthesia is that a sensory input in one modality (inducer) elicits sensory experiences in another modality (concurrent). Recent evidence suggests an important role of semantic representations of inducers. We report here the cases of two synesthetes, experienced swimmers, for whom each swimming style evokes another synesthetic color. Importantly, synesthesia is evoked also in the absence of direct sensory stimulation, i.e., the proprioceptive inputs during swimming. To evoke synesthetic colors, it is sufficient to evoke the concept of a given swimming style e.g., by showing a photograph of a swimming person. A color-consistency test and a S…

Transfer of synesthetic experience